Cut Me Loose
by Leah Vincent (Nan A. Talese, $26)
This memoir by a former ultra-Orthodox Jew “is by turns bold and self-pitying, sorrowful and triumphal,” said Gena Feith in The Wall Street Journal. When Leah Vincent was 17, her parents, members of an extreme sect, banished her for infractions that included writing to a boy and wanting to attend college. Left to fend for herself in Brooklyn, she even briefly worked as a prostitute. The story ends happily, but not before reminding us of the possible costs of fundamentalism.
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The Visionist
by Rachel Urquhart (Little, Brown, $26)
Rachel Urquhart’s “transfixing” debut novel will give you a new appreciation for 19th-century Shakers, said Amber Dermont in The New York Times. When the book’s teenage heroine flees an abusive father and is taken in by Shakers, she begins experiencing visions that mark her as special at a moment when she’s trying to find herself. The plot becomes a bit “fussy” and its villains are “drawn too broadly,” but Urquhart “has a genuine feel” for the main characters’ longings and devotion.
Still Life With Bread Crumbs
by Anna Quindlen (Random House, $26)
Don’t judge Anna Quindlen’s seventh novel by its opening pages, said Patricia Hluchy in the Toronto Star. Rebecca Winter, a lifelong New Yorker, is grumbling about her new rural existence in a way that suggests “lite fiction about the travails of the rich.” But the 60-year-old photographer turns out to be less entitled than you’d expect, and as she tries to patch together a new life, Quindlen provides “plenty of astute, witty commentary on the female condition, Baby Boomer version.”
Famous Writers I Have Known
by James Magnuson (Norton, $26)
The idea that a con man on the run from the Mafia could be taken for a reclusive literary giant “sounds mightily implausible,” said John McMurtrie in the San Francisco Chronicle. But James Magnuson “knows something about the world he lovingly lampoons” in this “ridiculously entertaining” novel, so readers will “happily eat it up.” Though Frankie Abandonato is a fish out of water when he stumbles into a post at a prestigious writers workshop, he winds up being regarded as a plainspoken sage.
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Music reviews: Chance the Rapper, Cass McCombs, and Molly TuttleFeature "Star Line," "Interior Live Oak," and "So Long Little Miss Sunshine"
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Film reviews: Eden and Honey Don't!Feature Seekers of a new utopia spiral into savagery and a queer private eye prowls a high-desert town
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Critics' choice: Three chefs fulfilling their ambitionsFeature Kwame Onwuachi's grand second act, Travis Lett makes a comeback, and Jeff Watson's new Korean restaurant
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”